Original scientific paper
Science in elementary school textbooks of Catholic religious education
Tihomir Vukelja
orcid.org/0000-0001-7097-2700
Abstract
The Catholic Church views science as an expression of man’s dominion over creation and the source of knowledge that complements the knowledge which is peculiar to faith. Catholic religious education in elementary school, oriented toward the development of a modern Catholic worldview, certainly should convey this fundamental message concerning the relationship between faith and science. In this article an attempt is made to evaluate how clearly elementary school textbooks of Catholic religious education communicate this message. For that purpose, in each of textbooks every text which explicitly or implicitly involves science is analysed. The analysis shows that textbooks offer an adequate framework for the first lesson concerning the relationship between faith and science in the context of the Catholic worldview. On the other hand, statements which fill that framework are often unclear and ambiguous, what is direct consequence of the principal flaw of these textbooks as regards the considered theme: textbooks do not contain any explicit interpretation of science based on documents of the Church.
Keywords
Elementary school; Catholic Church; textbooks of religious education; relationship between faith and science
Hrčak ID:
79176
URI
Publication date:
30.3.2012.
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